When I first realised that photoshoots were part of the job, I found it really uncomfortable and awkward,” says Weaving, a self-described introvert who suffers from anxiety. “So I came up with this character so it wouldn’t really be me doing it, and we called her Bridget
It may seem like a grand irony — the starlet with a striking old-Hollywood beauty, a CV that includes projects with the producer Ryan Murphy, screenwriter Martin McDonagh and director Damien Chazelle, and who is a friend of the Louis Vuitton house, struggles in front of the camera. But Bridget is just a codename for the role Weaving is reluctantly familiarising herself with: that of a bona fide movie star.
When we speak, Weaving is back in Los Angeles, her adopted home for the past seven years, and is gearing up to start the press circuit for her latest film, a romantic comedy called The Valet. Adapted from the 2006 French film of the same name, The Valet sees Weaving play Olivia, a self-absorbed actor having an affair with Vincent Royce, a married billionaire played by Max Greenfield. When the pair are papped outside a hotel following a midnight tryst, Vincent convinces Olivia to cover for him by pretending she’s actually dating Antonio, the valet who inadvertently appeared in the picture. The valet, played by Eugenio Derbez — a God-like megastar in his native Mexico who has been making waves in Hollywood, particularly for his turn in the Oscar-winning film Coda — agrees to go along with it because he thinks it will help him win back his estranged wife. Hilarity ensues, with Weaving and Derbez emerging as an unlikely comedic double act.
When we speak, Weaving is back in Los Angeles, her adopted home for the past seven years, and is gearing up to start the press circuit for her latest film, a romantic comedy called The Valet. Adapted from the 2006 French film of the same name, The Valet sees Weaving play Olivia, a self-absorbed actor having an affair with Vincent Royce, a married billionaire played by Max Greenfield. When the pair are papped outside a hotel following a midnight tryst, Vincent convinces Olivia to cover for him by pretending she’s actually dating Antonio, the valet who inadvertently appeared in the picture. The valet, played by Eugenio Derbez — a God-like megastar in his native Mexico who has been making waves in Hollywood, particularly for his turn in the Oscar-winning film Coda — agrees to go along with it because he thinks it will help him win back his estranged wife. Hilarity ensues, with Weaving and Derbez emerging as an unlikely comedic double act.
I love playing not-so-nice people. They’re just really FUN and JUICY, and so BROKEN. It’s boring playing someone who has together.
“I love playing not-so-nice people,” Weaving says with a grin. “They’re just really fun and juicy, and so broken. It’s boring playing someone who has their together.” A traditional comedy may seem to be new territory for Weaving. After all, she made her name in horror and action thrillers including 2017’s The Babysitter, in which she plays a babysitter-cum-leader of a demonic cult, and 2019’s Ready or Not, in which she marries into a wealthy family, only to be hunted on her wedding night by her in-laws as part of a satanic game of hide-and-seek. But in all her roles, Weaving has shown a deft and largely underrated gift for comedic timing.
In Three Billboards Out of Ebbing, Missouri, she plays Frances McDormand’s ex-husband’s new girlfriend, an airhead called Penelope. Her scenes were fleeting but memorable, cutting through the film’s oppressive darkness with moments of easy lightness. In last year’s TV adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s hit book Nine Perfect Strangers, Weaving plays Jessica, a veneered, fake-tanned influencer looking for spiritual fulfilment, and the actor holds her own alongside trained comedians Melissa McCarthy and Regina Hall. In one memorable scene, Jessica is tripping on a psychedelic smoothie and hallucinates pulling off her own nose. Weaving needed to hit dozens of subtle notes within seconds: dopily high, self-absorbed, self-loathing, genuinely terrified, giddily subdued. She nailed each seamlessly.
“Doing comedy is really hard, I would say it’s harder than drama,” says Weaving, who grew up with a cinephile father who’d make his two daughters watch The Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin and Monty Python. “I love comedy podcasts and trying to figure out the kind of math behind a joke: How does it actually work? How do you lay the groundwork for a punchline and make it really land?”
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